1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display device and method, and more particularly to an image display device and method for displaying an image based on data in a three-dimensional image format.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, a three-dimensional image (referred to as a 3D image hereinafter) is displayed using a liquid crystal display integrally formed of a display liquid crystal panel and a slit liquid crystal panel, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent-Laying Open No. 5-122733.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 7-236164, for example, discloses a device that displays a 3D image and a two-dimensional image (referred to as a 2D image hereinafter) simultaneously on the same screen.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 9-330022 discloses the following image display device. Three-dimensional image information is attached to map data read from a memory in accordance with a predetermined rule so that display data is created through three-dimensional computer graphics processing. The created image data is then used to display a three-dimensional image on a two-dimensional screen.
Recently, as image data in a variety of formats, including 2D images and 3D images are handled simultaneously, a device having an image display stores image data in these different kinds of formats in a mixed manner. When the listing of the stored image data in different kinds of formats is displayed in the form of a menu, the listing of so-called thumbnails where the image is shrunken for display is convenient, rather than displaying the file name of the file.
Conventionally, however, no device has been proposed to display a thumbnail image based on data in accordance with a 3D image format.